The prevalence of and factors associated with inclusion of non-English language studies in Campbell systematic reviews: a survey and meta-epidemiological study

Ref ID 702
First Author L. Neimann Rasmussen
Journal SYSTEMATIC REVIEWS
Year Of Publishing 2018
URL https://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13643-018-0786-6
Keywords Campbell
Author
Equity
Language
Social care
Policy
Psychology
Problem(s) Language restriction
Failure to consider equity, different socioeconomic groups or disadvantaged populations
Number of systematic reviews included 123
Summary of Findings 87% of included 123 systematic reviews did not exclude non-English studies a priori and of these, only 15% included non-English language studies. One factor that significantly correlated with the number of included non-English studies across all models was the number of countries in which the members of the review team work. There was a dominance of researchers from English-speaking countries (52.9%) and review teams consisting only of team members from these countries (65.9%). The most frequently mentioned challenge to including non-English studies was a lack of resources (funding and time) followed by a lack of language resources (e.g. professional translators).
Did the article find that the problem(s) led to qualitative changes in interpretation of the results? Not Applicable
Are the methods of the article described in enough detail to replicate the study? Yes